The CRIF in action
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Published on 19 February 2004

ANTI-SEMITISM: EUROPE CAN DO BETTER!

CRIF's President Roger Cukierman: "Sixty years after the Holocaust, Europe is again witnessing a new wave of anti-Semitic attacks. The European Commission has its share of responsibility in the failure to address this issue in due time. This seminar of 19 February 2004 on anti-Semitism is coming really late." This article also appeared in the French leading daily Le Figaro



Europe was created following the end of WWII because its inhabitants were exhausted by all the conflicts that claimed the lives of tens of millions of Europeans. Today, Europe only dreams of peace and tranquility. Europe wants to become a big fat peaceful prosperous province. It obviously doesn't feel like fighting, if one considers the budget allotted to its armies.

How, in absence of a powerful army, can Europe's voice be heard throughout the world? Europe doesn't want to be involved in any conflict. And if indeed a conflict erupts, it prefers to shy away from it. Let us hope that the current situation has nothing in common with the Munich era.

However, sixty years after the Holocaust, Europe is again witnessing a new wave of anti-Semitic attacks.

Indeed, the current wave is of a totally different nature. The perpetrators of those aggressions are essentially the sons of immigrants of Arab-Muslim origin. This wave is getting strength in Europe for the past three years, mirroring a conflict occurring some 3,000 miles away from our borders: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, importing it here and mixing it with anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Facing this evolution, the public opinion in Europe remains indifferent, as if it were a conflict between two minorities, the Jews and the Arabs. In fact, this is not a conflict between two communities, this is one-sided violence because the Jews have never attacked a mosque, and they never aggressed a Muslim cleric. On the contrary, several synagogues, schools, school buses have been torched; rabbis, Jewish children are being aggressed, endure ill treatments simply because they are Jews.

The public opinion, the media justify this violence by saying that the Muslim community is in sympathy with the Palestinian people because of the sufferings it endures. They also justify this violence because of the failure of the integration into Europe of these immigrants or children of immigrants, putting the youths in a situation of revolt triggered by school failure, unemployment, social exclusion and a measurable anti-Arab racism.

One conceals the development in Europe of a conquering fanatic Islamic fundamentalism, leading astray this moderate monotheistic religion, Islam.

European political leaders first denied the very existence of an anti-Jewish phenomenon. The reason is that the 15 million strong Muslim population of Europe has to be taken into account. Only recently was it admitted that what was happening was not just "regular" violence, but a specifically anti-Jewish violence

The European policy, usually very critical of Israel, contributed to this laisser-faire and to a general indifference. Some Europeans are still attracted by the ideas of the anti-Semitic, racist extreme-right wing. Some others, namely the leftist-Trotskyite trend, systematically promote an anti-Zionism very close to anti-Semitism. It is striking to notice that the Islamic fundamentalism of the 21st century is aiming at the same targets as Nazism and Stalinism, the two ideologies that were so harmful during the 20th century: Democracy and the Jews.

The European Commission has its share of responsibility in the failure to address this issue in due time.

This seminar of 19 February 2004 on anti-Semitism is coming really late.

And what is there to say about this opinion poll commissioned by the European Authorities that through biased questions enabled its authors to state that 59 % of the Europeans considered the tiny State of Israel as the most important threat to peace in the world?

What is there to say about the shelving of a survey establishing that Arab Muslims perpetrated most of the anti-Semitic aggressions?

What is there to think about Chris Patten, Member of the European Commission, who relentlessly opposed the propositions of François Zimeray, a Member of the European Parliament who wished to set up a commission to investigate the use of European funds by the Palestinian Authority?

What is there to think about the fact that Mister Tariq Ramadan – thinker and preacher of the Muslim Brotherhood, supporter of a moratorium on the stoning of adulterous women, publisher of lists singling out Jewish intellectuals – is one of the advisers of Mister Romano Prodi? What kind of advice is he giving to the European leaders? To convert to fundamentalist Islam?

The game is not over. Europe can still wake up. Europe must do it. Jews are like sentries of the Western values. Like French President Chirac said, "Attacking the Jews is tantamount to attacking the values of the Republic".

In spite of my disagreeing with the French policy in the Middle East, I ought to recognize the merits of France's struggle against anti-Semitism. And I think that France's awareness of the necessity of this struggle can become a model for Europe.

The new law on secularity has not been understood properly abroad. It is of course aimed at forbidding conspicuous religious symbols in state schools, but mainly at highlighting France's will to prevent the development of religious and political proselytizing. Those who have chosen to live in our countries must abide by our rules and customs.

France's both Houses voted unanimously a law increasing the penalties for racist or anti-Semitic aggressions.

An interdepartmental commission was specifically appointed to fight against anti-Semitism.

CRIF, representing most of the Jewish associations in France, has set up a commission liaising with the Ministry of Interior to share information and publish joint statistical assessments.

A second commission liaising with the Ministry of Justice has also been set up. The minister of Justice has appointed one judge in each jurisdictional region to deal with anti-Semitic offences.

We have a third liaising commission with the Ministry of Education listing all the anti-Semitic incidents, suggesting solutions and working on the civics curriculum.

Finally, we meet on a regular basis with the CSA, the French Broadcasting Authority, who has been required by the government to prevent the broadcast of anti-Semitic programs by Middle Eastern satellite television stations possibly beaming at the some 2.5 million dishes installed in France.

To sum it up, one must punish, one must educate, one must integrate and one must fight vigorously against the development here of an Islamic fundamentalism trying to replace our values with theirs.